Copyright © 2014 by Iris Anthony Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc Cover design by Elsie Lyons Cover image © Andy & Michelle Kerry/Trevillion Images Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and used fictitiously Apart from wellknown historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc P.O Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410 (630) 961-3900 Fax: (630) 961-2168 www.sourcebooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher To my husband, who shares my faith, my hopes, and my dreams, and in memory of my cousin, Linda Morris, who would have liked this book Contents Front Cover Title Page Copyright Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Character Notes Author’s Notes Reading Group Guide A Conversation with the Author Acknowledgments About the Author Back Cover AUTUMN 911 THE DARKEST HOUR OF THE DARK AGES CHAPTER Juliana ROCHEMONT ABBEY Such a wretched way to die I watched from my knees beside the abbess’s bed, hands clasped before me, as she took a shuddering breath Squeezing my eyes shut, I raised my hands to my brow, pretending to pray But I could not it; I had forgotten the words She could not die I would not let her The abbess had been more of a mother than the woman who had raised me Her heart had been more constant than the man who had once loved me Was there nothing I could to ease her pain? Adjusting her counterpane, I shivered as an especially vicious draft stole in through the chamber’s high windows and swirled its icy tendrils about my knees I felt the heavy weight of a hand upon my veiled head “Daughter.” Looking up, I saw the abbess watching me Grasping her hand, I kissed it “Do not leave us.” A ghost of a smile curled her thin, cracked lips “I not think I have any say in the matter.” “What shall we without you?” How would we go on? Who would lead us? “Do not fear God will provide.” “How?” The word escaped my lips before I could catch it I had not meant to give voice to my unbelief Surely now she would regret asking me to attend her “Without you, I not know how we will…” “Take heart.” She clasped my hand “Without me, there will still be you.” “Who am I but the least of all the others?” I had come to this mountainringed abbey seeking sanctuary, and even after all the years I had spent here, I felt myself a stranger still “Trust God Seize the chance to serve.” The chance to serve? Was I not already doing that very thing? She released me from her grip, but left her fever-withered hand resting in mine “Remember—” Her words left off as a spasm gripped her body I leaned closer After the seizure had passed, she lay back on her cushions, panting “Speak truth Stand for what is right.” Her hand twisted in mine as her face contorted with pain Looking straight into my eyes, she spoke again “Lead them.” “What?” “Lead them There is no one else.” She clutched my hand with a strength that stole my breath “You must it.” If she did not relinquish my hand, I feared she might wrench it from my wrist “I will.” “Promise.” “I promise.” If only she would lie down and spare her strength “You promised.” “I did.” She searched my face for a moment, and then she smiled After I had smoothed the counterpane around her shoulders, she closed her eyes, and she did not open them again As she lay there, her breaths becoming more shallow and labored, I let her expire without doing the very thing she had made me promise I did not tell her the truth: I did not intend to as she had asked The abbess died along with the sun as the bell was tolling vespers She went quietly, exhaling her last breath with a lingering sigh We mourned her for the required number of days And then, secretly, I mourned her still A message was sent to the bishop, informing him of her death Though we would elect the new abbess, it was he who would induct her And so we gathered in the chapterhouse one forenoon, after the day’s meal, to that very thing As I looked up and down the benches that lined the walls, I did so with a growing unease I could not see a clear candidate to lead us Of the several dozen sisters in the abbey, Sister Rotrude was the oldest and had been at the abbey the longest, but she seemed troubled in her spirit of late I used to think her full of the joy of the Lord, since she had always been prone to laughter, but she had taken up the habit of laughing during meals at nothing any of us could see or hear Her warbling, tuneless voice could often be heard singing during prayers, and increasingly, she asked after sisters who had already departed to receive their eternal reward Sister Berta should, perhaps, have been the obvious choice She was sound of mind and body, and none could doubt neither her capacity nor her willingness for hard work But she lacked a measure of joy The tips of her mouth pointed toward her chin, and one could not be long in her proximity before being informed of everything that had been done wrong in the past and all that would most certainly be found wanting in the future Even a dove of peace would soon find himself shooed away for want of a proper place to perch Were Sister Berta appointed abbess, I feared the abbey would soon become a dull and dreary place Sister Amicia? Perhaps not If Sister Berta dwelt too often on what was wrong, Sister Amicia trusted overmuch in Providence To hear her speak, God would provide whether the workers tilled our fields or not If she were to be believed, Providence might be depended upon to cook our food and feed us our meal as well Although she never lacked a cheerful word, and a smile was constant upon her face, I could not see the abbey long surviving under her leadership, knowing from regrettable experience that great hopes came to nothing if they were not first founded upon practicalities Though in generations past, the nuns of Rochemont had been well and truly cloistered, hidden away from the world, we could afford the luxury of quiet contemplation no longer Even at these perilous heights where we clung to our meager existence, pestilence and famine, cruel winters and wars, had long since thinned the ranks of our tenants If there was work to be done, we too had to take part in the doing of it The tasks, which in the abbey’s earliest years might have fallen to lay workers, we had taken upon ourselves And so, I nearly overlooked Sister Sybilla entirely It was not difficult to do, since she spent her waking hours at the hospice Rarely speaking, rarely even moving among us, she had never done anything wrong that I had noticed, but I did not know that she could be counted on to encourage any of us toward righteousness either Sister Clothild, the abbess’s prioress, was kind of heart and beloved by all A gentler soul I had never met, but for all her generosity of spirit, and despite the winsome way she had with the chaplain, the bailiff, and the household staff, she had never learned to read or write Character Notes THE WOMEN Juliana’s character is fictitious, but if the old stories are correct, King Charles had a natural (illegitimate) daughter quite early in his reign If the child’s mother was not Juliana, then it was someone very much like her But by 907, King Charles was apparently free enough from romantic attachments to marry the Lotharingian, Frederuna Anna’s character is also fictitious, but obvious deformities were considered a punishment from God during the period Pilgrims like Anna trod the roads during the Dark Ages, visiting shrines in search of a miracle that would heal them Records from those shrines record hundreds of miracles, some perhaps easily explained by coincidence or modern science, but others are of such an astonishing nature that “miracle” seems the only term to apply The queen mother, Adelaide of Paris, had many reasons to be bitter Her husband, Louis the Stammerer, was forced to repudiate the woman whom he had secretly married at age sixteen (Ansgarde of Burgundy, who was twenty years his senior and by which he had four children) in order to marry her When Louis was crowned king, the pope refused to crown her queen And when Louis died, a battle for the throne ensued Ansgarde called Adelaide an adulteress, while Adelaide called Ansgarde a whore Soap opera is a modern term, but the concept stretches back to the dawn of history Combine the fact that Adelaide was not her husband’s first choice, with the possibility that she saw her son follow in her father’s footsteps, and it is little wonder the queen mother hated Juliana, who was both chosen and loved And how ironic these patterns would assert themselves once more in the possibility of Gisele’s marriage to a man who already had a wife (in the most practical sense of the word) I could not have plotted these relationships better if I had made them up! French records don’t record Gisele ever marrying Rollo, while the Norman histories One theory holds that Norman chroniclers confused an earlier Gisele with Rollo’s Gisele This “real” Gisele, they claim, was a daughter to an earlier king and was also married to a Dane For centuries, the chief argument denying the existence of King Charles’s Gisele has always been the age of the king He was born in 879 At the time of his meeting with Rollo, he would only have been thirty-two For Gisele to have been of an age to marry at that point, she would have had to have been born early in her father’s teenage years Earlier centuries, apparently, found this inconceivable, but I had no problem imagining the possibility In any case, no one knows what happened to her after Rollo’s baptism, and she figures in no genealogy from the period If she did indeed exist, she would have been a natural daughter conceived from a relationship Charles had as a youth THE MEN It might surprise you, as it surprised me, that Frankish kings weren’t French at all They were German If there was any capital during those troubled times, it was not in Paris It was to Charlemagne’s old palace in Aachen that King Charles the Simple aspired In the interest of not confusing the narrative of the story by recounting the tumultuous politics of the time, I simplified the tale of Charles’s ascension to the throne Suffice to say that Charles had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time It’s unfortunate King Charles III has come down through history to us with the moniker “The Simple.” He was straightforward, honest, and sincere, but he was not stupid With a fractured empire and numerous enemies—Magyar invaders approaching from the east, Danes from the north, and the threat of Saracens ever constant in the south—it was impossible to fight on all sides at once And Charles did not just want to preserve the kingdom he had been left; he wanted to restore it to the glorious empire created by Charlemagne He let his nobles defend the edges of the empire, and then he did what many men in similar situations have done: he made a bargain with the devil And he followed a pattern well established in the ancient world by seeking to seal the agreement through the irrevocable bonds of marriage Charles achieved what previous kings had not: he reunited Charlemagne’s beloved kingdom of Lotharingia with his own kingdom of West Francia He must have considered that year of 912 a good omen of things to come After having been crowned King of Lorraine, he moved his court and his entire attention to its affairs But as he rode away from Rollo’s baptism in Rouen, he had unknowingly given away his destiny The future of Europe lay not with him but with Rollo, the father of the future dukes of Normandy, and young Hugh, father of the future Capetian kings The bargains Charles made and had been forced into allowed his nobles to build empires of their own, which would not be surrendered until a painstaking reconsolidation undertaken by a later dynasty of kings In 922, nobles who were tired of King Charles’s obvious affection for the Lotharingians gave his crown to Robert, the Count of Paris In 923, with the support of the Normans, King Charles was captured in battle as he fought to retake his throne He was literally left to rot in a prison and died there in 929 His only truly loyal retainer of that period turned out to be Rollo, who fought faithfully against every advance by the Count of Paris against King Charles’s kingdom Originally Viking denoted an excursion, not a people From their homeland in current Scandinavia, sometimes men would go on a viking, sailing off to foreign lands, seeking gold and treasure as they sowed fear in the hearts of people everywhere For centuries, they were known as Danes But this designation was not technical Danes during that period might have come from Denmark or Sweden or Norway In fact, the actual nationality of Rollo (as well as his lineage and his very name) is still debated Rollo’s descendants became the dukes of Normandy, and his great-great-greatgrandson William became known as the Conqueror in 1066 Perhaps most ironic of all, Rollo became a relic collector himself He was not, however, a convincing convert to Christianity Legend has it he ordered the beheading of one hundred Christian men upon his death bed Robert had many titles: Count of Poitiers, Marquess of Neustria and Orléans, and Count of Paris Later, he took the crown from Charles the Simple and gave himself the title Robert I For the sake of simplicity and consistency, I chose to refer to him as the Count of Paris His brother, Odo, also Count of Paris and Marquess of Neustria, had been appointed King of France during Charles’s minority but refused to relinquish the throne without a fight The agreement between the two rival kings left Robert with Odo’s lands, but bereft of the royal crown The boy, Hugh, may very well have been in love with Princess Gisele, as he fancied himself to be His father, Robert, Count of Paris, took the crown from King Charles in 922 When Robert died, just a short year later, the throne was offered to Hugh, his son He refused it, and it was given to his brother-in-law (his sister’s husband, the Duke of Burgundy) instead And when that king died in 936, Hugh was instrumental in bringing Gisele’s half brother, Louis d’Outremer, to France to claim the throne Though he and Louis subsequently had a falling out, after the king’s death, Hugh was the first noble to support Louis’s son, Lothair What better reward, then, for a faithful subject to become the founder of a royal dynasty himself Hugh’s son was Hugh Capet, from whom sprang the Capetian kings that shaped the destiny of modern France As so, we come to Andulf What can I say about this knight who was so noble and true, but that he, more than any other character in the novel, was a product of my imagination? During that time of tumult and turmoil, there were no knights in shining armor There were no castles as we think of them today, and there was no code of chivalry There was only survival If you imagine the world existing within the decaying moldering ruins of ancient Rome, you are closer to a picture of the times than if you read a fairy tale The story of woe he recounted to the princess, however, was true If you read Handbook for William by Dhuoda, you will hear, in his mother’s own words, the tragic tale of his family, and you will discover just how closely faith was woven into daily life Though it was written a generation before the events in this book, and though more than a thousand years have passed since the words were first penned, you can hear the longing and the fear and the pride of a woman who sought to give her two sons all of the wisdom she could think of She probably never saw her youngest son after he was wrenched from her arms shortly after his birth Author’s Notes Chroniclers of this age were few, and there are no contemporary histories that remain from the late ninth and early tenth centuries Those who later recorded the events sometimes relied on unproven oral histories or bent the facts to fit their biases Some historians of this period claim relationships between historical figures, which other historians take great pains to disprove And while some ancient records are quite clear on the existence of certain people, other records claim the same person never existed at all This period is rife with kings named Louis and Charles and usurpers named Robert, all of whom played a part in the dismantling of Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire Any given name from the period might be referenced in modern histories by three or four different spellings (Latin, Frankish, Germanic, and old English) according to the author’s preference Place names sometimes suffer a similar fate I went cross-eyed tracing family trees, trying to figure out who was related to whom and to what sort of degree Like nearly everything about the Dark Ages, family lines are rather obscure, with genealogies sometimes skipping entire generations and mixing up those of the same name but of different eras, for who knows what reason, which quite vexingly leads to claims of relationships that are ridiculous upon further investigation One thing is clear: the great Charlemagne left many descendants, both legitimate and illegitimate It was not unheard of for second or third cousins to marry in that tightly knit court, and what might merely raise eyebrows in our time would have been scandalous in an age that would not tolerate marriage within seven degrees of kinship (Which simply means the bride and groom could not share a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent.) I hope you will understand—and quite possibly sympathize!—when I admit that when I did not know for certain, I cherry-picked the facts I wanted, or I made things up where they didn’t exist I only hope for those not acquainted with the era that my fiction mixes seamlessly with the historical record In one of those strange coincidences that sometimes befall historical writers, after I had decided which saint should be the focus of Anna’s pilgrimage and which part of her body I wanted the reliquary to hold, I discovered that Saint Catherine’s finger was in fact brought to Rouen in the eleventh century It was placed in an abbey that sat atop a hill on the east side of the city Though the abbey was destroyed in the fifteenth century, the hill is still called by Saint Catherine’s name In the fifteenth century, Saint Catherine was one of the saints who urged Joan of Arc to fight the English, and it was in Rouen where Joan was tried and executed for heresy Although in the modern age wolves are not generally known to attack people, the Middle Ages recorded many accounts of wolves preying upon people With all of the famines and diseases and wars that swept the continent, generations of wolves were raised to believe humans were easy prey And although no bears currently exist in Europe, there were plenty back then Poland Syndrome, exhibited by a deformed hand and an underdeveloped breast on the same side of the body, was named for the doctor who documented it in 1841, but it must have existed for centuries before that Xylophagia is the type of Pica disorder describing those who eat paper or wood Pica can be exhibited in children who have developmental disorders or who have been neglected Tourette’s Syndrome, while commonly envisioned as a person uttering profanities at inappropriate moments, more often manifests itself in uncontrollable behaviors, like the young lord’s Arm flapping is a classic symptom of autism spectrum disorders Children with Down’s syndrome often repeat or mimic words or sounds That the abbey at Rochemont found itself the guardian of children exhibiting these sorts of behaviors would not have been uncommon All of these disorders would have made children unfit for normal life, and therefore unwanted, during the period Marked malformation of the body was often viewed as a judgment from God or as a punishment for a grievous sin Still, in contrast to the region’s pagan religions, Western Christian culture actively organized care for those who could not care for themselves Reading Group Guide How you define a miracle? Do you believe in them? Everyone puts their faith in something What you place your faith in? Juliana counseled her daughter not to despise the life she had been given Do you think this was good advice? Would you have said something different to Gisele instead? Was Juliana right in leaving Charles? Juliana believed that by retreating to live at the abbey, she had left the world behind She says, “Our abbey was not a kingdom Our doings did not affect the world beyond our gates.” Was she right? Have you ever retreated, hoping to leave the world behind? Did it work? In some ways this book is set up as a battle between God and men Gisele states, “My fate had already been determined by men I did not think there was anything God could now to intervene.” At another point the queen mother says, “God always gets his way in the end, does He not? How can you fight Providence and ever hope to win?” With which of those ideas you agree? Contrast the descriptions of Paradise and Valhalla How did each culture’s view of death affect their actions? When Anna is lost in the woods, she tries to find her way out At one point she thinks, “What purpose had the boulder served but to mark the place at which I had known myself to be lost? And why should I be so set on returning there? It could nothing for me but keep me waylaid In order to be found, I had to be willing to leave it behind.” What did each character have to be willing to leave behind in order to move forward? Anna had been told her disability was a curse from God Was there any way in which it might have been a blessing? 10 Why you think Anna was healed when so many other pilgrims were not? 11 At one point, Gisele states, “How easy it is to trust in God when you not have to trust Him for your life.” Andulf replies, “On the contrary I think it would be far more difficult to trust if nothing depended upon my faith.” Which character you agree with? 12 Did Gisele make the right choice in terms of her relationship with Andulf? What other ending would you have written for her? 13 Would you rather live in a world without faith or without hope? 14 Who was the miracle thief? A Conversation with the Author IRIS ANTHONY Q: Let’s get this question over with right away Do you believe in miracles? A: Of course I do! Don’t you? Who wants to live in a world where the miraculous could never occur? Art critic Bernard Berenson once said: “Miracles happen to those who believe in them.” I also think it matters who you put your faith in If you place all your faith in yourself, all of your efforts at improvement begin and end with you If you place your faith in something beyond yourself, then the door to other possibilities swings open Q: Speaking of faith, that seemed to be a prevalent theme in this book But this isn’t the Dark Ages Weren’t you worried you might turn some readers off? A: It would be difficult to write a book about the Dark Ages that didn’t involve some aspect of faith Life was steeped in Christianity People saw the hand of Providence everywhere It’s often stated that a person is composed of the mind, spirit, and body Those in the Dark Ages would have agreed The idea that some people in the modern era deny their spirituality altogether would have been completely shocking to them Everyone back then—pagans included—worshipped someone or something People of the Dark Ages asked the same questions about life and death, purpose and meaning, that we today What I wanted to discover is whether we have arrived at different answers, whether an interval of a thousand years has changed anything about the way we view the interaction between what is sacred and what is secular Q: I’m fascinated by this idea that novelists write to answer their own questions A: It’s a rather selfish undertaking, isn’t it? Holding readers captive for a hundred thousand words and however many hours it takes to read them in order to discover the answer to a question they might never have even wanted to consider It would be so much more efficient if I had the ability to write short stories! Q: So what did you discover? A: One of the most basic tenets of Christianity is the concept of grace—the undeserved favor of God But one thing that seems to have remained constant across the ages is humanity’s unwillingness to accept that grace at face value You can see that need to prove worthiness scrawled across the history of the faith By definition, however, that undertaking is futile I discovered the doors of the faith are wide open to all kinds of reprobates…but only if you’re willing to admit that you are one You can understand how that would be a big blow to the ego Hence the need to prove that you have somehow earned God’s favor…which brings us back to the original definition of grace The whole concept is ingenious! Q: Did you research on miracles? Or maybe the better question is how would you go about researching miracles? A: During the period, miracles had to be vouched for by witnesses It was no good to show up at a church and proclaim yourself healed…or your missing ax found or your child suddenly healed You had to have witnesses swear to the fact that your ax was actually missing or your child had truly been ill Some of the miracles attested to back then were things that we, in our modern age, can all agree were coincidence, but some were truly inexplicable Beyond that, in preparation for writing the miracle scene in the novel, I wanted to know what it would feel like I talked to people who have experienced miracles, asking what it felt like and how they knew they had been healed Q: Was there anything that surprised you about the time period? A: Everything! Here’s a secret: I procrastinated in starting this novel because I had such a difficult time imagining the world about which I was supposed to be writing The Dark Ages didn’t look like the world of the high Middle Ages, with knights in shining armor and turreted castles, but neither did it look like the world the ancient Romans left behind either There were castles in the Dark Ages, but they were mostly motte and bailey construction of solitary wooden towers built on top of a mound of earth There were walled estates, but often the fortifications were wooden palisades, not sturdy stone walls And there were knights, but there was no code of chivalry It might sound odd, but the hardest thing for me to remember was that there were no chimneys Fires vented through holes in the roof and they were kindled at the center of rooms, not along the walls More than one scene had to be rewritten or repositioned because I imagined the fire in the wrong place Q: How did you come up with the idea for this story? A: Like most of my novels, the idea for this one came as I was researching a different book I came across a mention of the book Furta Sacra by Patrick J Geary that talked about armies of monks setting out to steal relics from each other During this period, the concept of stealing relics was approved of and even encouraged But odder than that was the belief that the relics themselves would decide their fate If you were successful in your theft, then the relic wanted to go with you If you failed, then obviously it wanted to stay right where it was It was such an interesting belief that I began to wonder, “What would happen if…” The story developed from there Q: I love History’s series Vikings Your Danes aren’t portrayed in the same way A: There were so many things I discovered about Vikings during my research that I hadn’t known and so many things I came to admire in their culture But my Danes are the villains in this story, not the protagonists They’re also seen through the eyes of people outside their community who don’t understand their language, their culture, or their religion If they act like thugs, it’s because, for all intents and purposes, that’s the way they appeared to the Franks of the time Q: What was the big deal about relics? A: Relics, which are objects used as memorials of saints, became part of the practice of the Christian faith in the first century The church quite clearly says they are not to be worshipped, but only venerated for the purpose of commemorating a saint The idea of the relic is foreshadowed in the Old Testament Clothes, kerchiefs, and even the shadow of the Apostle Peter are spoken of in conjunction with miracles in the New Testament In the Carolingian period, every church was required to have a relic for its altar Since the supply of saints was limited, the options for acquiring relics were also limited You could buy one from a relic dealer, you could steal one from someone else, or you could go out and look for a relic that no one else had previously found A fairly brisk market in what I think of as “secondary” relics arose: dust from the tomb of a saint, filings from a martyr’s chains, and other objects of that nature Q: So was there really a Saint Catherine? A: There were several Saint Catherines venerated by the Church Like Princess Gisele, Saint Catherine of Alexandria is one of those obscure figures of the Dark Ages who may not, in actuality, have ever existed Her feast day is in November, and she is numbered among the Fourteen Holy Helpers In the eleventh century, one of her relics was, in fact, brought to Rouen, and a church was built to house it There are several hagiographies of her life, according to which she was a pagan princess (or daughter of a wealthy man) who was martyred in the fourth century at the order of Roman Emperor Maxentius (or Maximinus or Maximian) Devoted to scholarly pursuits, she converted to Christianity at the age of fourteen She then visited Emperor Maxentius to try to convert him as well Though he pitted the empire’s greatest philosophers against her, she confounded them with her arguments, and they converted to her faith Maxentius promptly ordered them executed She converted the empress as well…who was also executed After the emperor imprisoned Catherine for her impertinence, she converted two hundred soldiers who were then immediately killed Enraged, Maxentius had her tortured When she would not denounce Christ, the emperor offered her a royal marriage (whether to himself or some other noble is disputed) When she refused, he tried to have her broken on a spiked wheel, but it mysteriously disintegrated, and she was beheaded instead Her body, from which sprang a perpetual flow of oil, was later discovered on Mount Sinai Catherine is the patron saint of maidens, students, scholars, the dying, wheelwrights, mechanics, craftsmen who work with wheels, librarians, theologians, preachers, orators, and philosophers Acknowledgments To my agent, Natasha Kern, and my editor, Shana Drehs, who not only allowed me to write a book about miracles, but also encouraged me to so And to K, who never tired of asking me to tell the story of my story About the Author PHOTO BY TIM COBURN Iris Anthony is a pseudonym The writer behind the name is an awardwinning author of over a dozen novels Disguised as her alter ego, Iris has lived on three continents and traveled to five She has given up on keeping a diary, buying a château, and liking tea She stills hopes one day to be able to knit a sweater, play golf on the Old Course, and visit Antarctica Iris lives in the Washington, D.C., metro area in a house decorated with French antiques and Flemish lace Learn more about Iris at www.irisanthony.com ... trepidation, and the elation of my shameful heart, that the king and the princess came to visit the abbey The people of the village abandoned themselves to the excitement of the occasion and to the preparations... Saint Catherine’s chapel, the light embraced them Rich and poor; the young and the aged; both the whole and the sick Saint Catherine welcomed them all “After receiving the mysteries of eternal... closed the door It raced down the nave and into the chapel, poking at the candles’ flickering flames The light faltered for a moment, plunging the altar into relative darkness, but then the flames